Not too many people know this about me, but I adore anything Cajun or Zydeco. I have ever since I first I saw "The Big Easy" when I was 17 and then bought the soundtrack ON CASSETTE TAPE. That was shoot...30 years ago. Dang!

There's a part of me that still want's to learn how to play Zydeco music on an accordion, and I just might someday! I fantasize about moving to New Orleans; I just might do that someday too.

Anyway, if you are going to pass a good time today, you gotta have some gumbo! This is my most favorite recipe and it's a little of this, and a little of that I've gathered along the way.

So gather up your holy trinity Cher, make some roux, and fais-do-do till this delicious gumbo is ready!

To make the roux: Preheat the oven to 350°. In a heavy, cast-iron pot (Le Creuset or similar), start toasting the flour over medium heat, stirring constantly, just until the flour starts to turn dark blond. Take the pot off the heat and add the vegetable oil to the flour, whisk until smooth. Cover the pot and place in the oven to cook for 45 minutes. The roux should be the color of peanut butter, or even a little darker.

To make the gumbo: Transfer pot to the stove (careful, it is HOT!) and over medium-high heat, add the onion, pepper, and celery. Cook, stirring frequently 8-10 minutes until the softened. Add the garlic, thyme, cayenne, Cajun seasoning, flour and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and their liquid and cook until dry, about 1 minute. Stir in the chicken broth and fish sauce. Season chicken thighs with pepper and add to the pot. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and let simmer for 30-35 minutes, until chicken is cooked through.

Remove chicken and cut meat off the bones into small, bite-sized pieces. Return chicken meat to pot & throw away the bones. Stir in sausage and okra and simmer 5 minutes. Add shrimp and simmer till cooked through and bright pink (frozen shrimp may take longer). If gumbo is too thick, add about 1/4 cup water. Season with salt or pepper. Serve with cooked, white rice.

Thursday, February 08, 2018

I’ve been having a love affair with “Cooking at Home with Bridget & Julia” lately. At Christmas-time while shopping for gifts, I happened
to pick this book-up just for me. Let me tell you…WOW WOW WOW!

My new favorite cookbook!

Everything I’ve made so far, which is about 8 different
recipes, have been nothing short of amazeballs. Last night, I made the Pasta e Ceci (Pasta with Chickpeas) and man-oh-man it was sooooo good. I could have
eaten at least 2-servings. In fact I ate it leftover for breakfast today.

I was originally inspired to buy this book based on a video
I watched of Bridget & Julia making “Korean Fried Chicken Wings”. I thought
to myself, “I need to make these.” And when I spotted this book and the recipe
was in it, BOOM! Best decision.

In fact I DID make the “Korean Fried Chicken Wings” and both
me and my husband have declared them to be the best chicken wings we’ve ever
eaten in our lives! I even ordered a large, electric deep fryer just for this
occasion, as I hate frying anything indoors. I can make these out on the porch
with an electric fryer now!

But back to the Pasta e Ceci (pronounced PASTA CHEECH).
Again we’ve been pointing ourselves away from carbs this year, but man…sometimes
you just gotta have it! I could not have asked for something more perfect as
pasta cravings go.

Process pancetta in a food processor until ground to a paste, about 30 seconds, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add carrot, celery, garlic, and onion to pancetta and process until ground into a paste, scraping down processor sides as needed. Preheat Dutch oven over medium/high heat with olive oil, add pancetta mixture, and cook, stirring frequently, until fond starts to form on bottom of the pot.

In the meantime, process tomatoes in food processor until coarsely chopped, set aside. Add anchovy, pepper flakes, and rosemary to pancetta mixture, and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Be sure to mash the anchovy while cooking. Stir in tomatoes, chickpeas (and their liquid), water, and 1 teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil, scraping any browned bits, then lower to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes.

Add pasta and cook, stirring frequently, for 10-12 minutes, until pasta is cooked al dente. Stir in lemon juice and parsley. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese and a drizzle of olive oil on top.

My "Rosemary Mint" soap smells AMAZING, but the minute you take it in the shower, the smell goes away. I don't know why this is either. Even my husband commented on this...hmmm.

Disappearing scent...why?

BUT, on a good note, I was experimenting with a tropical-beachy-type scent and made these cutie patootie Sea Shell Soaps. Love. The only thing I would differently next time is to have the bottom part blue instead of white in order to make it look more like water.

Friday, January 19, 2018

While I am waiting for my new formula cold-processed soap to cure for testing, I've gone back to tweaking my bath bomb recipe.

Every day I'm hustlin'...

I've mostly liked what I've been doing for the past year with them, but they still needed some more attention to get to that "Perfect Bath Bomb". Like that "Perfect Bar of Soap," it takes time with many, many, many experiments and testing in between. I'm SO close.

I was able to wrap 100 bars of soap in less than an hour with this baby! In the past, this would have taken me hours...like an hour just to wrap 15 bars of soap! It's especially great for bath bombs which are notoriously a pain in the arse.

100 bars of soap in 15 minutes....DONE!

On top of all that, the shrink wrap I'm using is BIODEGRADABLE! How awesome, right? I always hated the thought of making such an amazing, natural product only to package it in environment-harming PVC. Ultimately, I will be putting my soaps in boxes and this will be primarily used for bath bombs and tamper-sealing lotions, body butters, etc.

Soaping responsively for the environment

Speaking of body butters. I made a Valentine's inspired citrus soap to go with my Bombalicious Body Butter. It smells out of this world! I made it in the same pink grapefruit, tangerine, and lemon fragrance blend.

But a funny thing called a "gel ring" happened when it was setting up. You can see where the color morphed from the right-to-the-left . It went from grapefruit pink to a natural soap/yellow color. It's all good...it actually kind of looks cool!

Thursday, January 11, 2018

Here we are again to take a look back on how things went in
the yard and garden for the past year. This is a bittersweet moment, as it most likely will be
the last yearly garden review I do for this house and property. We’ve absolutely decided
to list and sell this spring.

We’ve gone round-and-round for reasons, pros, and cons to selling now. But
it’s mostly come down to quality of life and property values. I could go on,
but for now, let’s talk gardening!

This past year really was wonderful in many ways. I’m always
surprised at how much we manage to get done.

Winter/Spring

We started out with my usual winter sowing project. I was
not going to do any winter sowing this season, but I do need my parsley, so
that will get started ASAP. Last year’s winter sowing actually did pretty well
now that I am back to doing it in Styrofoam cups and using a soilless seed mix.

2017 Winter sowing

Winter sowing...too many weeds

This past spring’s bigger project was the re-mulching of the
garden area. It made a HUUUGE difference in appearance, weed control, and
cleanliness in the veggie garden. It was a lot of work, but worth every ounce of effort.

New mulch being hauled in...each wheel barrel at a time

A pile of mulch waiting to be shoveled

Late Spring/Early Summer

In April, we finally finished rescreening the porch. It was another
big project that took a lot of time, effort, and planning. Not only did we
rescreen the porch with better screens, we tilled down about 18” into the
hard-packed clay of the perennial bed with compost, soil improvers, and
shredded leaves. After everything was replanted, it took off and did SO, SO,
SO, much better over the summer. I need to move one or two things, but I can’t
wait to see how it does this year (if we’re still here).

A lot of work, but worth it

So pretty!

May brought us garden intruders! For the record, I first saw that
groundhog, then that fox a week later. Neither one has been seen since!

Go away groundhog

Go get-'em foxy!

The garden, the yard, everything was just thriving and I got
to finally have a decent bearded iris bloom. Tried to grow kale and chard in
the veggie garden, but for some reason they were a fail. Other than that, this
past year was the best it’s ever looked.

New mulch standing tall!

The hosta bed got some new plants last year

Beautiful front bearded irises

This year should be better!

Summer

After that blissful, beautiful minute of June, things turned
bloody hot and dry in a New York minute! So much so, that our poplar trees
started losing their leaves in July due to heat and drought stress. I think we
went a good 6 weeks in July/Aug without rain. It was very hard on everything. I
started installing Mister Landscaper micro irrigation around the property.

Tomatoes starting coming in as usual. Grew my usual hybrids
and heirlooms. My favorite heirloom this year was "Green Zebra"! I found that
pruning the tomato plants up a good 10-12” inches from the bottoms helped to
really keep the fungus and blight in check.

The start of the harvest

Greed Zebra was a yummy, well-balanced tom

The veggie garden did wonderfully and I found that if I kept
a good spraying schedule of spraying the zucchini squash with BT every 7-10
days, the Squash Vine Borers were kept enough at bay to get a decent harvest.
My favorite squash this year was "Grey Zucchini" from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.

2017 veggie garden was amazing

Elsewhere on the property – the Japanese Beetles were
HORRIBLE last year and all about skeletonized my new, sweet, potted Japanese
Maple. This year, I need to get this baby on a systemic program to protect it.
Voles are still here and come in waves – they try their damdest to get to my
hostas, but my chain mail planting cages have saved every one. I’m hoping this
winter’s hard, hard freezes will control some of those bastards this year…as
well as flies, mosquitoes, and ticks! We kept a regular fungicide program on
the lawn and that made a HUGE difference – no brown spot.

I planted more daylilies, which have suddenly become my new
bearded iris obsession! They’re so easy and carefree to grow, plus after a
couple of years, they can be divided-up like crazy.

Beautiful spider lily

Late Summer/Early Fall

First, I grew a huge friggin’ 2 lb. tomato last year! I couldn’t
believe it. It was an heirloom “Gold Medal” which despite its size, I wasn’t
really impressed by the taste. Too sweet.

A 2 lb. monster

Hummers were super fierce this year. We had to put up 2
extra feeders to lessen the fighting. I often wonder what will happen to them
when we leave.

Hummers needed more dining space

I was extremely tickled to find some wild Jewelweed growing
right down the road from me. I made Jewelweed soap and anti-itch balm which
work amazingly well on itchy spots. Can’t wait to make more this year!

Jewelweed jewels

The rest of the yard picked-up and breathed a collective
sigh of relief with some rain and moderate temperatures. We actually had
somewhat of a “normal” fall this year and regular respites into the 70’s in
September.

Tomato windfall

Beautiful front perennial bed

Even more tomatoes!

Front begonias in bloom

Late Fall/Early Winter

We were so tickled to find the most PERFECT family-owned
lawn-and-garden center near us this past year. There is a chain of garden
center’s up hear called Meadow Farms that have a huge inventory of cool stuff,
but they are 95% staffed by 16-year olds who couldn’t and don’t give a rat’s
behind about gardening or landscaping. I can’t tell you how many frustrating
times I’ve gone into one of their centers to ask a pest or lawn question that
only meets me back with blank stares or “let me ask the much “more” experienced
18-year old manager…who doesn’t know and doesn’t give a shit either”.

GRR!

So, you can imagine my thrill to find an honest-to-god
garden center with passionate, experienced, life-long garden and lawn enthusiasts
that can actually discuss which strain of tall fescue works for our area or
which brand of fungicide works for different types of fungus for your lawn…even
if you can’t buy it there!

Roxbury Farm...the best lawn and garden center in NoVA!

Anyway, we aerated, limed, fertilized and overseeded the
lawn again with a custom grass mixture we bought from them that was AMAZEBALLS
reliable and gorgeous when it grew in. All those years we threw money away on
friggin’ Pennington’s makes me nauseous.

This spring our lawn is going to look like Augusta National!

Thoughts for 2018:

Really, my plan for 2018 was to NOT have a veggie garden and
to only focus on perennials in the yard, but I know if we list the house the
veggie garden needs to stand tall and project that “ideal country life” image. Blah.

So, with that, here are some thoughts – Mostly this year
will be about prevention and maintenance:

Finish removing that creeping jasmine from the property
fence

Give those Grey Zucchinis another try! Not only were the
plants beautiful, but they were good producers

Start the potted Japanese Maple on a systemic pest control
before June when the Japanese Beetles come in

Hit the Japanese Walking Grass week with Roundup when they
are sprouts – they are much easier to control that way

Consider putting in another Mister Landscaper drip
irrigation in the front yard by the peonies

Friday, December 29, 2017

Happy holidays everyone! I hope you all have a safe and happy New Year celebration this weekend. As for me? I'll most likely be bundled up by the fire waaay before midnight. It's friggin' cold outside!

What to do when the temps are frigid? Make soap!

Actually, I am dialing down-down on my soap formula to find "The One". From "Bonfire Bliss" (red/black/orange soap on the far right in pic), each one of these bars include one-tweak-to-another to get to my perfect bar of soap.

New soaps from right-to-left

What makes my "Perfect Bar of Soap"? I want it to be a high-quality, nice conditioning bar. I want it to be a hard bar that I can unmold in 24-hours or less. I want it to be flexible as far as design. I don't want to have to struggle with annoying soda ash afterwards.

What I've done is added some yummy butters like cocoa butter, Shea butter, and mango butter. I've increased what is called my "superfat" in my recipe - meaning I've increased the percentage of oils/butters in my recipe that WON'T saponify (turn to soap), so my bars have more free-floating conditioning-oils to make the skin feel super-soft. And, I've added just a smidge of beeswax to help control soda ash, which it has been doing spot-on. The colors are poppin!

"Beautiful Day" - Dig my glitter nails!

"Beautiful Day" LOVE THIS!

So, right now we wait and see. Since cold process soap takes 4-6 weeks to cure, it's a waiting game, and I don't want to get too far out in production to only find I don't like what I've made.

Rosemary Mint w/Gold accents colors - St. Patrick's Day?

So far, my "Winner Winner Chicken Dinner" soap that I am praying all others turn into is my "Rose Clay and Charcoal" soap that I've made several times before. This one is spot-on in everything I want and I'm hoping. In fact, I'm renaming it as "My BFF Rosie" because it's THAT GOOD. Leaves your skin feeling super soft and silky...good lather. Although this remake did not include beeswax, which I am on the fence about. We'll see...

So, it's really a "what if I add this and not that?" situation. Why not make all my bars just like "My BFF Rosie" then? Well, because I don't know if it's my oil/butter combination or the other ingredients in that bar that makes it so special. So, we make different combinations of ingredients to see what works and what doesn't.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Yesterday was Phase 2 of the great Christmas cookie bake off, where I baked cookies for neighbors, the mail person, local friends, etc.

More cookies!

I wanted to share some of my favorite, perennial Christmas cookie recipes that I've made over-and-over through the years. They're not particularly festive or colorful, but they taste out of this world!

So, if you want to bake some last-minute cookies this holiday season, give these a try! They won't disappoint!

Cream shortening, butter, and both sugars. Add the eggs and molasses and mix until well combined. Add the flour, salt, baking soda, and spices and mix until well combined (I don't bother sifting). Add the chopped candied ginger and mix till incorporated. Chill the dough for at least one hour.

After the dough has chilled, preheat the oven to 350°. Roll tablespoon-sized balls of the dough in the coarse or turbinado sugar. Place dough balls an inch apart on a greased or parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake approximately 10-14 minutes.

The cookies will puff-up and crack when baking. The cookies are done when the cracks should still look a little wet, but the outside looks dry. They'll "fall" as they cool. Don't over bake or they will be crunchy...but still good, though!

Note: These are BEST if made with Andes Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips. Don't let the other impostors, such as Ghirardelli and Hershey's fool you...I've tried them all. So, if you see these in the store, grab-em! Grab a lot and stash them away, cause they're hard to find!

Note: If you love Snickerdoodles, then you will be hopelessly in LOVE with Superdoodles! Superdoodles are Snickerdoodles that have been elevated to angelic status through the addition of Hershey's Cinnamon Baking Chips. Again, if you see these in the store, BUY THEM ALL and stash them away - they're hard to find.

Cream shortening and sugar together. Mix in eggs until well incorporated, then add vanilla extract. Add baking powder, baking soda, salt and flour (I don't sift) and mix on low speed until incorporated. Add the chips once the flour mixture is mixed in.

Preheat oven to 400°. In a shallow bowl, add about 1/4 cup sugar and about 1/2 tablespoon of cinnamon, then mix with a fork to make cinnamon sugar. If you'd like a stronger cinnamon-to-sugar ratio, then add 1 full tablespoon of cinnamon.

Drop dough by tablespoons and roll in the cinnamon sugar. Place on parchment-lined cookie sheet and slightly flatten with either your hand or the bottom of a glass. Bake cookies about 10-11 minutes, just until they start to turn golden. After removing from oven, lightly dust cookies with ground cinnamon (I don't bother). Try not to eat them all!

Post note: These make crunchy, rather than chewy Superdoodles. If you like chewy Snickerdoodles, try substituting half or all of the shortening with butter. I haven't tried this yet, but someday I will.